Huh, maybe she gets pissy if you boot her twice? Or were you on character quest? Weird. Oh well I guess? (Use Mazzy instead. Don't you dare touch Cernd).
Icewind Dale - Since there is so much Infinity Engine going on I was all excited and wanted to play something that I hadn't done in ages and Andy has Planescape covered, so I went with the second shittiest game in the engine (IWD2 would be a better game if it wasn't such a giant clusterfuck of bugs and jamming 3rd Ed rules into 2nd Ed engine). I am done with first level of Dragon's Eye. Interested if Yxonumei is as bullshit as I remember. Running all pure classes because I am like that. Fighter, Thief, Cleric, Druid, Bard, Mage. Because IWD is mostly low level so that running that many casters isn't so bad. I really should have grabbed another fighter type (paladin probably) instead of the Druid, but Druid's get interesting spells in IWD1. They wanted them to be legit competition for Clerics in the dungeon crawl game, so they get solid selection of the token healing (Think they even get Res and Heal) and get enough offensive spells to be a ghetto Wizard.
I am regretting the Bard as I always do for several reasons. Primarily I don't like scroll management of who learns what. If I want 2 arcane users I normally get a Sorcerer in BG1 with Tutu. BG2 showers you in scrolls so it isn't so bad. The other reason I regret it is that the Bard is about to unlock Level 3 spells. This is the point where Bards > Wizards for raw damage in spell casting due to character level driving spell damage and Rogue spell experience tables (Level 7 Bard at 40k experience, Wizard level 6 at 40k Experience with 2 level 3 slots, extra D6 on Skull Trap. This will persist well into level 20 (where spell level caps out in base IE games). Bard doing 20d6 with Skull Trap at 2.2 Million experience compared to Wizard not getting it until 3.75 Million. When the Bard has it capped out the Wizard will be level 16 (in 50k more exp). It only really gets out of hand around level 12/13. So the Mage can pretend to be good at damage for a few more levels.
That said I fully accept that this is a real total artifact of Infinity Engine games with Skull Trap. First of all it deals non-elemental Magical damage, the least resisted damage type in the game (see why Horrid Wilting is so strong in BG2). Secondly it isn't capped on spell level like Fireball, so it keep d6/level damage relevant at level 3 slots for way longer than it should since damage level cap is the primary scaling factor for spell levels up to 8 (where they start dropping d8s). Thirdly Skull Trap live up to its name. You can spam a pile of them somewhere and lure enemies into them or where enemies will spawn and just explode them. I love this part. To cap it all off, you can just throw it into a crowd and it goes off instantly as if you used Fireball. Also the AoE is smaller than Fireball, which is fine because 30 yards is actually too fucking big and Skull Trap will hit the majority of mobs you pull anyway.
So the bard unlocks Level 3 spells 2 levels higher than a Wizard, but only 1 wizard level worth of experience different (level 5 Wizard gets 1 slot at 20k experience, level 7 Bard gets 1 slot at 40k experience, same time Wizard gets to level 6 and gets 2 slots). Your Wizard has only had one level of dropping fireballs on shit like a boss being a total BA then Bard comes along and dunks them for 2d6 more damage when he first unlocks them. Shits cray yo.
That isn't even talking about my main man Magic Missile. Bard shits out missiles all over like a mofo giving 0 shits about the fact that Wizard supposed to be like master of magic. Oh extra missile every 2 levels beyond first? We will be about even when we are shooting 4. At every other point in career bard will have more missiles sooner than Wizard. Also Chromatic orb is hilarious if the game supports Instant Death variant. You think your Wizard is pretty pimp with his one shot of Finger of Death at level 14. Level 7 spell finally, shit that Bard's can't learn finally, bust out some Instant Death like a boss. Single shot of it at a -2 save. Some pretty sick shit. Oh wait. Bard has had Instant death in his level 1 slot (at +6 to be fair) since he was level 12. oh sure its only 3 levels difference and the Wizard can do that as well and will have an extra shot of it. WRONG WRONG WRONG. The bard will have had Instant Death available at 440k experience, when the Wizard is level 11 still, they won't even have level 6 spells yet (For Disintegrate for your ID REPRESENT).
So yeah. Fuck bards, they shit all over my Wizard Parade (I was into Wizard Parades back before Harry Potter made them cool).
Also I keep using them in Icewind Dale because they have all these fancy Bard Songs and shit that you never use. Warchant of Sith is the one that gets me hard because it is like 2 HP Regen a turn and I love passively healing the party (ITS SO EFFICIENT YOU GUYS 12 HP A TURN, THAT IS 2 HP/SECOND FOR FREE). That shit is dumb because you never fucking use it in combat, Bard is too throwing explosive death skulls at people to sing a note, then because Bard has the longevity of a 13 year old they are out of spell slots instantly, so you know what you do? Rest. Thus fully healing.
Fuck bards.
So anyway, Wizard gets to pack assorted buffs and debuffs because Bard ain't got time for dat shit (And Fireball because Fireball suxxxxorz as noted above and
I still love my Wizard throwing fireballs like a boss. What do either of them pack in level 5 and 6 slots? Well whatever the fuck really, Skull Trap kind of invalidates damage spells of all other levels that are not Single Target for damage control or are status spells. You could use Chain Lightning, but it is a bit inconsistent in what it hits. You could use Sunfire since it caps out at 15d6 (Bards learn it at level 13, you see because Bards don't have to work hard to reach their potential) and has a nastier tendency to blow up your party in ways that not even Skull Trap can. Cone of Cold has some use if you badly want to fuck your own party up with hard to control 90 degree arcs of 10d4 damage; because a spell that you learn at level 9 Wizard needs to cap out its progression at level 10 (Bards learn it at level 13 as per Sunfire).
Actually level 5 Arcane is a weird spell level. In BG2 there is all kinds of cool control stuff to put in there. Breach for stripping melee defenses, Lower Resistance for fucking up dragon's days, Shadow Door for a strong Invisbility effect before you get Mislead, Spell Immunity for hilarious exploits, Spell Shield for generic protection and stuff. IWD? It has Cloudkill, which is great for standing around waiting for it to dissipate after it has either killed everything or done fucking nothing. Otherwise it is... Some mass crowd control effects in Chaos? When you could have just dumped a Cloud Kill in shits face if their saves are bad? Otherwise it is Summons (or cone of cold which we have established the suckitude of). You get to pick between Elementals or Undead. There is no fucking reason you would ever pick Undead because your Cleric will have that shit at in all them level 3 slots that are useless because you are rocking level 5 and they now have all those filled with Heal. Also Summon Undead is fucking STRONK and both these versions are the same.
Incidentally if you are doing this because don't have a Cleric and have a Druid then You Are Doing It Wrong. You picked Druid because they can act like a Ghetto Wizard and are using your Wizard as a Ghetto Cleric in response (when you should proooooobably be having them act as a Ghetto Bard. See above.) also your Druid will level slower than Cleric because suck it Druids.
What was I talking about again? Oh yeah. Icewind Dale. It sure is a weird little dungeon crawler. You know my favourite little bit of unremembered history with this game that you won't notice unless you read old reviews or walkthroughs? This game was a direct competitor with Diablo 2 for some people for some reason. It came out THE EXACT SAME DAY in NA. The games couldn't be more different and these days are both in completely different genres, but back then they were divergent offshoots of the same pedigree. History definitely shows a clear victor on this one. In retrospect that is full batshit fucking crazy. Most especially Interplay dropping that shit on the same day as D2. Like NOW dropping shit the same month as Blizzard is kind of retarded (and inevitable because Blizz with hold release until 2 weeks before you announce release, because suck it Druids), but back when Diablo 2 was coming out? I might be talking out of ignorance and having been in my tiny bubble of friends and family, but Diablo 2 was something that we had been scrounging information from Magazines and this new Internet thing for like 2 years ever since we had finally worn the sheen off the first game (2 years of pretty consistent on and off play).
I will let this quote from Wikipedia carry this point home.
Icewind Dale was critically well received, scoring 92% on Game Rankings. Gamespot gave the game 86% saying: "It's well suited for fans of Black Isle Studios' previous games, classic hack-and-slash AD&D computer games, and anyone looking for an action-packed role-playing game with a lot of depth." IGN scored it 8.8/10 and Game Zone gave it 9.5/10. According to GameSpy, "Icewind Dale was a fun dungeon romp that can hold its head up high, even if it can't match its big brothers". Chris Chan of the New Strait Times said the game was one of the best he'd ever played, giving much of the credit to R. A. Salvatore's writing, which he called "superb". Chan went on to compare the game with the "overhyped" Diablo II, saying controlling six characters was more interesting than the single character permitted in Diablo II.
It wasn't even poorly received, just holy fucking shit it was Diablo fucking 2. What in the fuck Marketing people 15 years ago?
Edit - Fuck bards.
Edit 2 - Good gods, I spent my whole night posting about playing Icewind Dale instead of actually playing it. I didn't even mean to post about it other than a passing mention. I meant to post THIS story about GTA5 that I forgot to even start.
GTA5 STORY TIMES.
My brothers have been playing this a bit more than I have. I fuck around and lose them money. That is fine. We were doing some item collection shit on Trevor. I crashed and couldn't get my vehicle back, so swapped to Michael and got shot by cops because I punched a guy in the street and that is a Shoot on Site crime (and don't even know the controls for shooting).
So my older brother respawns and runs around for a bit as Michael, plays some golf (which you can manually walk between shots if you so desire. GTA5 is more Golf Sim than most Golf sims). Swaps to Trevor in his Tuxedo getting kicked out of a Casino saying "Where does it say pants are required on the Casino floor?", then my older brother turns around and sees the Submarine I had been piloting around with Trevor looking for Nuclear Waste before I beached it out of boredom (it is Yellow of course). He then runs down the highway to steal a car and gets run over by a Pißwasser truck. GTA5/10 made fucking around with that sub finding nuclear waste for half an hour bored out of my gourd worth it.
